PERSONAE
↳ ULISphotoFEST, Istanbul, Turkey

Adonis - Artist, 2006
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The ingenuity of film and photography as art medium lies in its flexibility – most effective in documenting the raw and real and contrastingly also in staging and styling the less real. As photographer and video artist, Kiki Petratou embraces this fluidity. All protagonists in her 'Personae' series (though arguably with exception of Jan the professional dreamer) are removed from their titled vocational context. There is nothing to define Thera as the web designer or Monica as the civil servant. Instead the viewer is drawn towards an identity that is personal and delicate. Aptly reflecting the intricacy of what can constitute identity – an overt theme of much of Petratou's work – this series is by no means unambiguous. On the one hand her documentary style portraits capture a banal and raw reality typical of Martin Parr's works – all subjects are situated in mundane settings of everyday life. However, unlike Parr's subjects who are oblivious to an outside gaze, Petratou's are engaged with the viewer. There is a strange mix of vulnerability and empowerment as the subject's confront the viewer as we intrude into an intensely personal space. This combined with dramatic use of colour and lighting contributes towards a stylised representation. Part documentary and part theatre, Petratou's construction of the intimate only serves to heighten the complexity and potentiality of an apparently bounded identity.

Charlotte McLaughlin is a writer and critic.

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ULISphotoFEST, Istanbul, Turkey
Photography Institution
May 12 — July 1, 2007

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